With the New Year upon us, the dieting ads are abounding! It seemed fitting to share this post, which is a re-posting from September 6, 2011. If you are interested, come on over to my new blog where I give three reasons why I won’t be making resolutions ever again and what I am doing instead!
Are you a dieter, hoping to find a blog that will offer you support and encouragement? I must apologize. I want to support YOU, but I don’t have the resources to support your diet. I would love to talk you OUT of being on a diet. I would love to talk you into being FREE for the rest of your life. Not free to be overweight, but free to lose the obsession with food and dieting AND free to find your natural God-given size, all the while growing in a closer relationship to the God who created you!
I would be so blessed if you would let me talk you into ditching your diet–forever!
I bet you know how to diet with the best of them. If you are like I was in 1999, you have lost weight a bunch of times. The trick is, we just can’t keep the “performance” up. It wasn’t until I began to believe that my list of “good foods” and “bad foods” was NOT helping me and that I had to try a different approach that I was finally able to lose the weight for good. I lost the *thinking* that had kept me on the pendulum swing, too!
Many of us are fearful about throwing away fat-gram counters, diet books, the special foods, measuring cups and food scales. Having a meal where we don’t have a death grip on our food content FREAKS US OUT! We are terrified of what the scale will say in the morning, even if we have “been good!”
I just don’t believe that God intended us to live this way…in fear. Fear is not of the Lord!
He wants us to experience the provision, presence, and power of His Spirit in our lives. As we walk in dependence on Him, asking Him about our body’s need and what fuel He has provided to meet that need, we come to see Him as He is…a GREAT provider! He never intended food to TORMENT us!
This is part 4 of a series of posts about how “Junk Food” is a myth. My view is there is no such thing as JUNK food. In fact, I don’t believe some foods are fattening. Over-eating IS! 🙂 You can over-eat and get fat on ANY food.
If you are afraid that if you start eating burgers or fries or whatever else, you will expand to double your current size, let me share with you how this works. 🙂 Before I stopped focusing on the nutrition content…back when I was having to step out in faith and start eating according to my physical hunger and physical satisfaction cues without counting points, calories or whatever else, I kept a loose mental note of nutrition facts relative to my eating. I did this as a sort of “insurance” policy and also to see if this thing was really likely to “work.”
Here is what I found: If I am physically hungry and slooooowly eat a more calorie-dense food, and really listen to my body as it signals physical satisfaction…well, it doesn’t take much of a calorie-dense food to satisfy my hunger. This translates into fewer calories than some might think. The thing is, many of us assume that if we order a burger and fries, we will eat the entire thing! But we don’t need to do that. We can eat only what our body needs and it knows that it isn’t hungry after just a few bites. It may not take many bites of a calorie-rich food, but those bites are deeply satisfying! I don’t end up frustrated and ready to indulge at the first discipline failure.
Dieters know that fat has more calories per gram than carbohydrates or protein. So it stands to reason that things with more fat are likely to sustain me a bit longer and it is likely to take less of it to get me to a place of physical satisfaction. LESS of it. That makes a huge difference! If I eat LESS of a regular hamburger…say 1/4th of it, isn’t that better than eating TWICE as much of a fake-burger? When I eat the entire fake-burger even though I am not hungry, is that really healthier? Overeating diet foods or eating smaller portions of regular foods…which keeps me healthier mentally and spiritually? Well, for me, it has been smaller portions of regular foods. In the past, eating the diet foods, just resulted in me giving in later out of frustration and eating BOTH…the “diet” food AND bingeing on the “bad foods.”
With the dieting mentality, food was my god…either because I was over-eating it, consuming massive quantities out of the sheer compulsion to do so … OR I was obsessing about counting this or that, weighing this or that and being sure I had special foods with me when going out with friends. That is a “god” there, too! I wasn’t free of my idol just because I had switched from over-eating to counting everything. With both mentalities, my focus was FOOD FOOD FOOD! Not to mention the worry of losing or gaining and weighing. It drove me nuts!
When we embrace the freedom to which the Lord calls, we are free to be grateful and thankful with a humble heart and to enjoy any food. We begin to care more and more about how our bodies feel and begin to gravitate toward foods that we know intuitively make us feel better–more energetic and less bloated (for instance).
The “forbidden” foods no longer have a hold on us because they are not forbidden! We can have any food any time we are hungry and suddenly when I know I can have Chocolate Turtle Empanadas at On the Border any time I want, I don’t need to have them all the time! When I order them, I don’t need to overeat…I can slowly enjoy a few bites and discover that I am physically satisfied…not to mention emotionally *gratified* that I got to enjoy something so wonderful! Spiritually, I am praising GOD for the incredible tastes and textures in the food as well–AND that he has made my body so efficiently that it doesn’t take much food to sustain my energy!
I can keep this approach up for the rest of my life. That is why I don’t gain back the weight! This is a lifestyle change. And I continue to eat with gratitude and joy just as the Scriptures seem to indicate I should! I am not taking on a form of legalism as if it is godliness. Instead, I am learning to depend on the Lord as I seek His leading in the moment.
It just plainly takes less calorie-dense food to satisfy me than it does something that I don’t want in the first place just because it has fewer calories!
What do you think? Are you willing to give it a try?
I hope you will come visit my new website and new blog. I don’t know if I will keep both up, but the same material that has been here since 2006 will continue to be here!
Say hello! 🙂 I would love to know you were here since things were offline for a while.
Thanks and have a wonderful Christ-filled Christmas!
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:18,19 is a precious passage to me. God has used it to speak to me yet again. He asks me if I can SEE what he is doing. Do I PERCEIVE the new thing he is up to!
I just returned from a wonderful horseback ride and it never fails to astound me that God uses my horses to teach me about life and about Him. Today was no exception.
Imagine walking through a dark alley after midnight in a part of town reputed for being riddled with crime. What do you feel? Edgy? A sense of foreboding? Like at any moment you could be startled and it could mean severe harm? Believe it or not, that is how a horse feels much of the time! God has wired these amazing animals (since The Fall) with prey-animal instincts. This is true of wild mustangs, but also our barnyard trail horses.
Since horses anticipate they will be eaten at any given moment by a predator–not hurt, but killed– they look at the world differently than you or me. It makes time spent with horses on trails amidst forests filled with bogeys, replete with adventure.
Therefore, I have learned when I ride to see the world with the eyes of my horse. This way, I am prepared to help him when something unexpected frightens him and he jumps out of his skin (while I am still on his back). It might be a strangely moving rock (actually a lizard darting off the rock to shelter), a plastic tarp floating in the wind, or an inner tube hoisted above a fisherman’s head!
Today, a yard decoration twirled in the breeze on one side of the trail as a hiker approached with a child in a backpack on the other. Poor Harley was convinced that his life was over. Because of the way I have trained myself to see with the eyes of a horse, I anticipated that Harley might need help and I was able to be there when he needed me.
Afterwards, as I considered how we managed safely through this experience in spite of Harley’s instinctive sudden leap sideways, I realized that looking at things from the perspective of my Heavenly Father also helps me to navigate life with greater tenderness and wisdom. What does He see when He looks at the teenager, the widow, my checkbook, my calendar? As my day stretches before me, if I choose to look at life with the eyes of my tender, compassionate Father God, what will I see? What will I know or be able to anticipate? What will become possible when I see things as he does?
My son reacts to something I say and, instead of disrespect, with my Father’s eyes I see that there is pain deep in my son’s heart that he is guarding. I can come alongside and support him to process what is really going on.
A friend misunderstands me, challenging my motives and intentions, and, instead of being deeply wounded and going inward, I see with the Lord’s eyes the difficulties she has been facing and that I am a safe person with whom she can “decompress.”
His vision enables me to see that which I couldn’t otherwise see and provides wisdom to do that which I couldn’t otherwise do.
With my Father’s eyes, I see any of my “issues” and incessant longing to “just be normal” as opportunity to learn complete dependence on Him. Oh! How my struggle with this keeps me clinging to the hem of his robe!
Going through life, seeing with only my own eyes limits me too much, making me myopic or, what Jesus referred to as, “Nearsighted and blind.” I don’t want to miss rich opportunities that God intends for my growth as one of his children.
Today, I will choose to see with my Father’s Eyes.
How about you? What situation would be transformed if you could see it afresh through the eyes of your Heavenly Father?
This video is extremely powerful. It isn’t a Christian video, but it demonstrates *precisely* what one of my deepest concerns is about focusing on our weight and why I feel like the “Greater” calling of God on my life is to focus on HIM and WHO HE is… When my focus becomes Godward, I believe that *I* change…and these inward changes will affect my outward appearance.
It is my deepest conviction that the same is true for you! For everyone!
I hope that David experiences that transformation that God specializes in!
I want to wrap my arms (and heart) around everything that God has planned!
If you have visited my blog at all previously, then you know that my primary ministry for the past 6 years has been encouraging people with regard to eating between hunger and satisfaction. This has been “good,” but, now, a shift is in order. To continue with that focus would be to allow myself (and maybe you?) to be distracted from what is a greater, more worthy, focus.
I see it this way: I have a choice–will I allow myself to obsess about my size or even, perhaps, about the nobler thought of how my eating and weight may be a reflection to some people about the sufficiency of my God, or will I pursue the Greater thing that God wants me to pursue? Is it possible that I have been living the antithesis of what Jesus speaks of in Matthew 6? Read my anti-verses:
Heidi, worry about your life and what you will eat and drink. Go ahead and worry about your body and what you will wear, how it will look and what size it is. Your life is all about food and clothes and how you look. (Antithesis of Matthew 6:25)
So keep up the worry–it is so productive! Obsess about what you will eat and drink and wear. The people in the world run after these things and God wants you to be just like them (not!). (Antithesis of Matthew 6:31, 32).
I have been living as if these are the words found in Matthew 6…but who would really say these things to me? The enemy of my soul!
Instead, Jesus says:
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well.
~ Matthew 6:33
God is redirecting my life. I feel the *good* thing has been to speak to others about offering our bodies to God and pursuing “0 to 5” eating–and I still believe this is *good*. But I think my focuson this has eclipsed the greater thing that God wants to do in and through me.
I am expanding my vision.
Will I take him at His word? If I seek HIM first, and HIS righteousness, to know Him, exalt Him, praise Him, adore Him, walk with Him…if I allow thispursuit to saturate my life through and through–not just be “first” on my list each day before I take off and do my own thing–is it possible that anything else that He wants in my life will fall into place?
If what is said is true–that the good is often the enemy of the best–then I want to move on, grow up, graduate on into the *best*…that greater calling of God. I want to put the “good” in it’s place so it doesn’t stand in the way of the best!
How about you? What have you focused on in your life that hinders you from pursing that Greater thing that God is calling you to?
1. Figure out why you are going to a social occasion like a party or family gathering. (See chapter 25 in Thin Within.)
– Write down your purposes in attending and plan accordingly. Most of us, once we have decided to surrender this area of our lives, don’t go to parties intending to overeat. So ask yourself if it is because you want to connect with family, friends and co-workers, it is easier to accept that food isn’t required for that.
– Then, when you get to the event, achieve your goal! Socialize or network or whatever it might be!
2. When planning to attend a social event that includes food, plan to be at a zero (stomach totally empty) by eating a smaller meal earlier in the day.
– It may be unreasonable for you not to eat at some events–like sit-down holiday dinners and the like. If your event is at 7pm, for instance, and you get hungry at 5:30 pm–you are definitely at a 0 at 5:30pm–then have just a few crackers or a cup of milk or something that will just remove the hunger. You don’t need to eat to a 5. This way, you will be more likely to arrive at your holiday dinner at a 0 and ready to eat.
– You can also “ride the 0” a little while unless you know yourself well enough to know that you will have a hard time eating slowly if you get “too hungry.” When we eat too fast, it is easy to eat way too much.
3.) When you are eating 0 to 5 at a holiday party and there are TONS of choices from which to choose, you can look at all that is offered and evaluate before you choose the foods you will eat which choices are most likely to be “teasers,” “pleasers,” and “whole body pleasers” (see chapter 18 in Thin Within). You want to be “picky” about what and how much of each “pleaser” or “whole body pleaser” food you select.
– Identify which foods offered are teasers and don’t even “go there.”
– If something is available all year long (like fresh french bread) you may want to forego selecting it in favor of something that is a favorite at holiday time (chocolate peppermint pie? LOL!).
4. ) Look around the party or dinner for a naturally thin eater and note their behaviors. See if you can spot someone who is naturally thin, but who is enjoying the party without overindulging. (This may be tough as most Americans use holidays as an excuse to eat way more than we need…thus the “average” American gaining 8 pounds in two month’s time.)
5.) Sometimes people give gifts of food. It is true that some people love on others by giving food any time of the year–all the more during the holidays! In Thin Within, there is nothing wrong with having a small piece of whatever food that you receive, of course. If you know that you can withstand temptation to overeat it, feel free to have it in your home, of course! But if you know that you can’t handle the temptation, then here are some suggestions:
– When someone wants to send you home with a bunch of treats 🙂 either politely tell them “No, thank you,” or oblige and state (or not) that you will be glad to share the treats with others…then re-gift them as soon as possible before temptations lures you into eating them.
– I found that friendships didn’t end and family members didn’t disown me if I refused food from them. Maybe your friends and family are different…but really, when you consider where “people pleasing” has gotten most of us, it is like a death sentence. Most people who love us well enough to give us food gifts are aware of our struggle. Depending on the person, I have admitted my weakness as I explain why I have to turn down their kind offer.
– When you end up with treats anyhow…THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH FLUSHING THEM DOWN THE TOILET THE MINUTE YOU WALK THROUGH THE DOOR! If you are like me and sometimes need “permission” to do something so drastic, consider this a blanket permission… “Flush the cookies, cakes, pies, candy, whatevers…down the toilet!”
6.) Put the fork down between bites when you are eating out or at a holiday party. This helps slow me down quite a bit any time…not just for holiday parties.
7.) Maybe most importantly, EXTEND GRACE to yourself. If you “blow it” for a party or a meal or even for a day or a week…just OBSERVE and CORRECT! This isn’t a diet, so you don’t have to feel like you “blew it!” Instead, you just had a step or two back on your path…but forge ahead “forgetting what is behind!” Remember this is a journey…a life long journey! God extends grace to you in all things, so extend some to yourself!
What about you? Do you have strategies that have helped you make it through the holidays?
To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; in You I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame… – Psalm 25:1-3a
There are moments when I get a big, sudden dose of reality. I am faced with the truth of what it is I am trusting in and it certainly isn’t God! In those moments, I feel shame…it is as if all my “eggs” have been placed in a basket–all that I feel, what I perceive about the world and myself–I have entrusted to a “positive” situation or a person. Circumstances and people aren’t to be looked to for my sense of value, well-being, or confidence. To do so, is to set myself up for a deep wounding or a fall. My soul is to be lifted up to God alone. When I do that, there won’t be shame. He is faithful, loving, and good.
Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all the day long. – Psalm 25: 4,5
This is the perfect antidote for the shame, disappointment and heartache I may feel when I have trusted in circumstances or people too much. Fix my eyes on the Lord and he will show me HIS ways. He will teach me HIS paths. He will guide me in HIS truth. He alone is my Savior and worthy of my hope throughout this day!
Obsessed with lights, reflections, and shadows, my golden retriever, Daisy, slams herself into the wall as I open the back door. The sun has just risen above the hill in the distance and Daisy is convinced that the prey animals–squirrels, perhaps–scamper a mass exodus on the facing wall, reflections moving in synchronization with the door. She earnestly assaults the wall to stop the invasion.
Never deterred by the obvious pointlessness of her behavior, the beliefs she possesses drive her to pursue the illusive prey.
Sometimes, she tries to “control” her urges. Body still…alert, watching, quivering…yet seemingly resolved to “leave it,” when, suddenly, she flings herself into the wall yet again, overcome by the urge that has ruled her for her seven years of life. Daisy has never successfully captured a reflection. Why she keeps at this behavior, one can only guess.
I wish I could explain that reflections have no substance and thinking differently is necessary in order to be victorious over the impulses she faces. I would expose the fact that believing the lies keeps her stuck in destructive and futile behavior.
Can you identify with Daisy? Do you keep slamming into a wall but feel like you accomplish nothing?
I wonder if you, like Daisy, might benefit from thinking differently.
My focus in the pages I have written here since 2006 has clearly been on the “success” that you will experience (losing weight) if you eat when you are hungry and stop when you are no longer hungry. Whether implied or stated explicitly, I have asserted that you will experience the physical transformation seen in my pictures (down the sidebar and elsewhere on this site)–that you will “release” all your extra weight and keep most, if not all, of it off your body permanently. That if you eat “0 to 5” and go to God for all the other reasons you are tempted to eat, you will be transformed!
This IS true, but this is only PART of the truth! Believing that 0 to 5 eating will physically transform you without incorporating the whole picture can actually perpetuate discouragement and, even, captivity. Without the context of a renewed mind, changed thinking, and new beliefs, 0 to 5 eating is just another diet.
I know some of you are dealing with this. You have done everything. You feel like Thin Within is a last hope. And some of you have tried TW, “released” weight, regained it, tried it again, lost weight, gained it again…and you find you are on another figurative treadmill…only now feeling more hopeless than before. I really believe this is the same behavior that Daisy’s reflection madness illustrates for us. We could restrain her externally, but true lasting change has to come from some place deeper. Somehow, she needs a new belief about reflections on the wall. Perhaps we need new beliefs about food, our bodies, about weight and about God!
We need to stop slamming into walls chasing something illusive! Maybe what we keep chasing is serving only to distract us from what is really worthy of pursuit.
I propose that we turn a new direction. I hope you will go with me down this new road. Instead of chasing lights on the wall, I want to chase hard after God. I want to pursue a transformed heart and a renewed mind. I don’t want to settle for a change in my body–I don’t want YOU to settle for that! Or for the promise that we think having a smaller body will offer us when SO MUCH MORE is offered by our great and generous God who lavishes grace and mercy on us so freely!
I want nothing less than God very God, breathing his life into me and through me. I want to sense his presence so powerfully, that it is palpable. I want to invite him to expose lies that I believe in a new way…not just if the truth feels better than the lie I have believed. Sometimes the lie feels good, even more “truthful” than the truth! That is why we grab at it. It is familiar. But nevertheless a lie.
I want to rebuke any lies that somehow whisper comfort and solace to me when I desperately long for it and there seems to be none forth coming. I want to be willing to stand cold, alone, bare before my God and trust him that if I am exposed and left standing it is for very good and perfect reasons.
Let’s stop slamming into the walls, led astray by what we are so convinced is true. Let’s take time to pause and consider together. Over the next weeks and months, I hope to do that here. And you are invited to join me.
Was there anything that I shared in this blog post that resonated or rang true for you? Won’t you share with me what that was/is?
